Keep your head

20.07.2011

Deborah CaprasDeputy Editor

On the look-out for wise words for work

Deborah Capras is an experienced author, editor, trainer, content manager and digital learning specialist. She writes about the latest trends in the world of corporate training and about wise words for the workplace at www.wise-words.com

Rebekah Brooks’s amazing head of hair certainly makes people’s heads turn. However, the attention she got — particularly from Rupert Murdoch — must have gone to her head over the years. Last week, her pretty little head finally rolled.

Brooks stepped down as CEO of Murdoch’s News International and has been arrested over phone hacking and corruption. But other heads have been rolling, too: journalists, private investigators, policemen — even a “sir” couldn’t save his own head. Metropolitan Police CommissionerSir Paul Stephenson, Britain’s most senior police officer, resigned on Sunday, even though he said his integrity is "completely intact". Sean Hoare, the journalist who originally broke the story about phone-hacking at Murdoch's Sunday tabloid, the News of the World, has been found dead.

If you can’t get your head round all this information and people, you can read an overview of all the characters involved so far in this seedy affair — and check out the headshots — over on the BBC.

What now? A politician or two perhaps? British Prime Minister David Cameron has been far too friendly with the tabloid journalists, but he is just about keeping his head above water at the moment. He'll probably survive the scandal — he’s got a good head on his shoulders. But, it’s time he put his head on the block and knocked this kind of relationship with the press on the head once and for all.

That, however, doesn’t mean curbing press freedom.

The UK doesn’t need new media laws; it just needs a politician who won’t bury his head in the sand when he learns of illegal practices. And if he can't get his head round this kind of concept, then he has no place at the head of the government.

My quiz this week tests your knowledge of expressions using "head". How many do you know?